In Iran; Black Turban Follows a White Turban

 We watch Iran as we wait for Jesus.  Why?  Because they are a named player in the Last Days so we expect them to be in the headline news more and more often as The Day approaches.  For my new readers please note that the Bible refers to Iran as Persia.  Ezekiel 38 is clear that Persia will be part of Magog coalition that seeks the plundering of Israel which will most likely happen following the rapture of the church.

Iran just had another election and it sounds like they used fraud to elect another hardliner wearing a black turban. So what's the difference between a white and black turban in Persia?

Now what? This is the question Iranians ask these days as they try to absorb the shock of the latest elections which has propelled another turban into the presidency of the Islamic Republic.

Leaving aside the first two whose ephemeral career was too short to merit attention, the Islamic Republic has had five presidents.

Of these, only one, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, did not pretend to be a man of the cloth. Of the remaining four two, Hashemi Rafsanjani and Hassan Rouhani, wore white turbans that designated them as "common folk" (aam in Arabic) while two others, Ali Khamenei and Muhammad Khatami, donned black turbans and the title of "sayyed" which in Persian designates the descendants of the Prophet through his daughter Fatimah az-Zahra, thus regarded as "special".

The new president-elect, Ebrahim Raisi, also wears a black turban, indicating the ruling elite's determination to close ranks under the flag of Bani-Hashem.

However, there are a number of differences in Raisi's case compared to his predecessors.

He is the first to win the presidency with the title of ayatollah. The other turbaned presidents entered the game as mere Hojat al-Islam, the title of mid-ranking Shiite clerics. One, Rafsanjani, promoted himself to ayatollahhood years after his presidency had ended. Another, Khamenei, started to use the title of Ayatollah two decades later when he had already reached the top of the regime as "Supreme Guide". The remaining one, Khatami never dared progress beyond Hojat al-Islam.

Not satisfied with the title of ayatollah, Raisi also becomes the second Islamic Republic president after Rouhani to use the title of Doctor (doktur in Persian).

None of the turban-wearing presidents had undergone an authentic theological training, a scheme that would demand decades of study and training on the job before a man could claim the title of Hojat al-Islam, let alone ayatollah. Khamenei had received perfunctory theological education before he became a political activist, ending up with four years of banishment from his home province. After the revolution, he had a decade of official activity, including years as president, and thus was unable to attend any theological classes. His self-promotion to ayatollah and later grand-ayatollah was a pure public relations operation.

For his part, before the revolution Rafsanjani had been a building contractor and businessman, transforming himself into a cleric by wearing a white turban and going around as a Hojat al-Islam. Before the revolution, Khatami, too, had not thought of pursuing a clerical career and tried to obtain a degree in chemistry from Tehran University.

As for Rouhani, he was working for a diploma in textile design when the rumblings of revolt persuaded him to wear a white turban and jump on the coming gravy train piloted by Khomeini. Later, to cover up for his lack of a theological education he promoted himself to "doctor" by claiming he has PhD from a college in Scotland.

Thus Raisi is the first to start his presidency with the triple title of "doktur", ayatollah and "sayyed". In other words, he has all that all his predecessors claimed and more. More importantly, having been in his teens when the Shah left Iran and the Ayatollah Khomeini arrived, he is a pure product of the new regime found by Khomeini; a bionic man put together by the infernal machine of the Khomeinist state and reflecting all its pretensions and contradictions. He is also closer to a new generation of nomenklatura than his turbaned predecessors.

These points merit attention because to see Raisi as a cleric heading a clerical regime would be a mistake. He is as much of a cleric as Saddam Hussein was a Field Marshal. It would also be a mistake to see him, as some American "liberals" have done, as more "open to the world" because he claims a PhD.

At the other end of the spectrum, many people see Raisi as an Iranian caricature of Judge Blood because, as a junior judge, he had been part of a group of mullahs issuing thousands, some say tens of thousands, of death sentences on dissidents and other opponents of the regime. However, to see Raisi as a mere puppet playing Judge Blood could also be misleading. Raisi has been created by a network of Mafia-like interests linked to the military-security apparatus that has embraced the Iranian-nation, sucking its vial energies, as a poison ivy that could kill a towering oak with a tight embrace.

Here:  Iran: Black Turban Follows White Turban :: Gatestone Institute

You simply can't make it up that President dementia-Joe wants to re-sign Obama's nuke deal with these terrorists.  Trump tore it up soon after taking office.  They say "Death to America!  Death to Israel!" every single day before their version of Congress meets.  But the Left here in America is wowed by anyone with a PhD and believe that this title confirms you are more educated and less likely to be a religious fanatic of any stripe.  So Biden will probably give the new President of Iran all the line he needs to continue planning the destruction of Israel.

And where does this leave America in the blessing or cursing of Israel?